“He was really never himself the whole game,” said Broncos coach Steve Hawkins, who started sophomore Demetrius Ward in McLemore’s place. “I love the kid to death. He did everything he could, but he just wasn’t really able to go after everything he went through (Tuesday).”

Alex WolfCareer game for WolfWith WMU trailing so significantly and needing points, Hawkins turned to junior walk-on Alex Wolf for 23 minutes at point guard Wednesday.

Wolf responded with a career-high 18 points on 5-of-6 shooting, including 3 of 4 3-pointers.

The last of those gave the Broncos a glimmer of hope right after David Kool fouled out, cutting the deficit to 70-64 with 52 seconds remaining.

Wolf acknowledged the heavy workload sort of felt like his days at Parchment High School.

“A little bit, because I was getting the ball in my hands and trying to create something for the team,” Wolf said. “But, I mean, when you look at it it’s a loss, so I’m not too excited about it.”

Quotable“I’ll show it to you on film. I would challenge that foul any day. The kid’s just playing hard. I saw the play completely. He goes into the key, he’s trying to get around a kid that’s blocking him out. There was very little contact. One kid’s doing what he’s supposed to do, Donald’s doing what he’s supposed to do. ... You’re going to get bad calls on the road. It’s my job to deal with those guys. It’s their job to play through it and we just didn’t do a good job of responding to it.”

— STEVE HAWKINS, WMU’s coach, mostly talking about Donald Lawson’s second foul with 7:02 left in the first half on an offensive rebound attempt after a missed free throw.

Reitz in attendanceFormer WMU center Joe Reitz and members of his family attended Wednesday night’s game. Reitz, a native of Fishers, Ind., just finished his second season as an offensive tackle on the Baltimore Ravens practice squad.

By the numbersWMU missed all eight of its 3-point attempts in the first half. ... The Broncos were out-rebounded 20-11 in the first 20 minutes. ... During that span, Ball State’s best two offensive players, Jarrod Jones and Jauwan Scaife, combined for four points on 2-for-11 shooting, but their teammates made 14 of 15 first-half shots. ... Randy Davis, averaging 5.8 points per game, led Ball State with 21 points, including 14 of 16 free-throw attempts.